The new kids...how does this work at your school?

[Podrick]

Our primary has a relatively high turnover of pupils such that there are normally about 4 new kids each year.

Many of them do not settle in much, and seem to have problems making friends even after being there for several terms. Is this typical?

I really feel for these new children.

Not typical, I think. My ds changed schools after summer half term in Y3. His school went to great lengths to team him up with others in his class who seemed like-minded souls, and he had several meetings with an assistant whose job it is to make sure that all new intake are settled and happy.

18 months on, and he feels as if he'd been there forever, and has loads of friends.

Girls can be tricksier though, sometimes. But even in my dc's former school there were kids who joined later and became a firm part of a group.

Maybe the school needs to make more of a thing about welcoming new children, and giving existing children responsibility to look after them and make sure they're okay?

At our school I would say that one in three kids settles in well and the other two just don't settle well at all even after several terms. Is our turnover higher than normal? It would be rare to have less than 4 new pupils over the year for us.

I mean 4 new pupils per class

That is a lot, podrick. I was talking about 3 or 4 new children during the lifetime of a particular class (single form entry, so the best part of 30 kids stay together for 7 or 8 years). By the time they reach the juniors they're thrilled to get some new faces in tbh, so newbies are flavour of the month for a few weeks till it all beds back down.

Maybe in a class with much higher turnover the group isn't cohesive enough to be so welcoming to newcomers?

Some kids settle really well but more don't, and I find it really sad! I try to encourage my dd to befriend the new ones, but mainly she won't . There are a lot of kids with university parents from overseas at her (state) school thus the turnover. Most of them speak fluent english, a few don't.

Certainly there isn't much novelty value in new pupils as there was when I was a kid.